Bad Monkey

“And the fucking Herald will be all over it, too. My wife, she wants me to run for state attorney general year after next. She’s already looking at private schools in Tallahassee.”

Yancy found himself improbably touched by the sheriff’s grandiose fantasy.

“Don’t you get it?” Sonny Summers said. “Everything bad’s gonna come out now. Weeks ago, when that goddamn arm first showed up, I told the media that Miami had taken over the investigation. That’s what Rawlings put in his report, except it wasn’t true. The thing was in your—”

“Freezer.”

“—personal custody. And you’re not even a cop anymore.”

“That you can fix,” Yancy said. “Just hand over my badge.”

“They’re gonna say I ditched a human body part and then lied about it. That’s tampering with evidence, obstruction, whatever. Now the whole damn mess looks like a cover-up.”

“Naw, it’s just a jurisdictional snafu. Blame it on me—no, wait, don’t.”

“Hang on.” Sonny Summers was jotting down the phrase “jurisdictional snafu.”

Yancy decided it was wiser to keep the sheriff on edge. He said, “You should be aware, however, that Stripling was murdered here in Monroe County, not in Miami.”

Sonny Summers looked up, blinking like a toad in a puddle of piss.

“Chopped to pieces at his condo on Duck Key,” Yancy reported heavily. “The guy was a thieving shitbird but, still, a dreadful end. I know exactly how the killing went down.”

“You do?”

“The wife and boyfriend did it. Hacked up Stripling’s body and sunk the boat.”

Sonny Summers bit his lower lip. “Where’s the rest of the corpse?”

“Who knows? Gone forever.”

“But, then, the arm she had the funeral for—how’d it get back to the Miami morgue?”

“Grave robbery gone bad.”

“Oh, fuckeroo.” The sheriff covered his ears.

Yancy mildly raised his voice: “I’m betting they hired some mopes to dig it up.”

“For God’s sake, why?”

“Because,” Yancy said, “yours truly was hot on their tail. The widow Stripling and her man are running scared.”

Sonny Summers kicked back from the desk, the chair squealing under his fresh lard. “But you’re not in homicide, Andrew. You’re on roach patrol!”

“Once a cop, always a cop,” Yancy said fraternally.

Given the frequency with which body parts turned up in Miami, the discovery of another hacked-off arm usually didn’t draw much attention from local news outlets. However, most severed limbs were found in Dumpsters or roadside canals, not in Callaway golf bags. Such a colorful detail, if leaked to a reporter, would almost surely produce a headline. After that it would take only a bit of digging to learn that Nick Stripling had been a big-time Medicare fraudster. Next stop: Dateline NBC.

“I wasn’t the one who said it was a boat accident,” the sheriff protested. “That was the almighty U.S. Coast Guard!”

“Sonny, please let me finish this off. I’m so close.”

“No way.”

“Here’s your story: You had me working on the case from day one, okay? On special assignment. Why? Because you’re a lawman’s lawman. You always had private doubts, a gut feeling there was foul play. That’s what you tell the press after I bust Eve Stripling for first-degree murder—then you’ll look like a star.”

“Slow down, Andrew.”

“I’m the only one who can put it all together!”

Sonny Summers wouldn’t budge. “You can’t be anywhere near this case, or any case, because you’re not on the damn payroll anymore. You’re an ex-detective, and you got that way by violating a prominent dermatologist with a household appliance in the middle of the business district! It made all the papers, my friend.”

Yancy had one more card to play. “Remember that fishing mate who got shot? It’s a city case. Charles Phinney was his name.”

“Sure, I remember. The robbery near the raw bar.”

“Wrong.”

“Or was it the Turtle Kraals?”

“It wasn’t a robbery, Sonny. The kid was killed because he knew too much about the arm.”

“You’re giving me a cluster migraine.”

“Stripling’s widow set him up. Her boyfriend was the shooter.”

“Guess what? Let’s stop here.”

“That’s three murders,” Yancy said, “almost four. They tried to kill me, too.”

The sheriff lowered his lamentation to a rasp. “This is not a productive conversation.”

“Let me make it all better.”

“Take a vacation, Andrew. I’ll clear it with Lombardo.”

“But I don’t need a vacation. I need my job back.”

Yancy had to cool down so he bought a ticket on the Conch Train and took a slow tour through town. A pleasant couple sat down near him, confiding a fervid interest in the polydactyl cats that roamed the Hemingway House. One of the animals was reputed to have at least twenty-six toes, and for a glimpse the Whitlocks had traveled all the way from Ashtabula, Ohio. Yancy hopped off the train near the Mallory docks and strolled to the X-rated T-shirt shop, where he emphasized to Pestov the importance of Madeline’s well-being. He was able to make his point without the Glock, which he’d chosen not to wear to his meeting with Sheriff Summers, who was a chronic stickler and worrywart.